The Hills Have Eyes II

Last year's The Hills Have Eyes remake accomplished what very few remakes manage to do : it took the best parts of the original and then made everything else even better, scarier and gorier and bloodier. I credit most of this to director Alexandre Aja who is a brilliant man working within the horror genre (netflix his High Tension right now!). Aja's remake of Wes Craven's 1977 film was the best horror remake ever. But, a sequel to a remake? Sure, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Prequel wasn't so bad but I wasn't excited about this idea. Still, I'll check it out because the only thing better than a good horror movie is a bad one so I can complain about how they don't make them like they used to. I can tell you this however - this film is much better than the 1986 sequel to the original (now that was a bad, bad movie). This film was written by Wes Craven and his son and, luckily, doesn't follow the story of the original sequel at all.
This sequel follows a group of National Guard trainees. The main people to watch are Napoleon (Michael McMillian), Amber (Jessica Stroup), Missy (Danielle Alonso) and Delmar (Lee Thompson Young), who may just be the smartest person in a modern horror film. On their last day of training, they are sent to stop by a base camp of scientists doing research in the New Mexico desert to drop off equipment and when they get there, they find it empty. After hearing cries of help on a radio and seeing a flashing signal coming from the hills, they decide to climb up there, assuming it is a scientist in need of help. This is how it all begins.
The same creepy music remains but gone are the fascinating opening credits the remake employed (however, this movie opens up with the most disgusting birthing scene you could ever imagine). That movie had me from the beginning... this movie takes a little longer to grow on you. In the beginning, I thought for sure I was going to hate this movie so much but it turns out to be not so bad. It is, at the very least, entertaining. The scenes in the latter part of the film in the mine tunnels were well done and became a perfect creepy setting for the battles to play out. The acting was good enough. None of the cast are stars but their performances were average and they played their characters believably enough. The thing that lacks most is how severly underdeveloped the characters are. This is something I loved so, so much about the 2006 remake. That was a slow burner that took a while to get to the action, but wasn't boring because you spent the first thirty mintues getting to know the characters and getting to care about their fate. You don't really care about any of these people.
The bloodshed and gore are all there... it's a huge part of the movie (as it should be) and it doesn't let up. There are severed limbs, stabbings, shootings, impalements, and heads being smashed into mush galore. If you are expecting a blood-soaked movie, you're going to get one. It may even go a step further on the violence and the gore than did the remake although that was gory enough. One major, major problems I had with this movie was the cannibals. The cannibals in the 2006 remake were much nastier and inhuman than those in the Craven film and they were creepy and scary. In this movie, the cannibals are so disgusting and so over the top that they border on campy. They shouldn't look like normal people, but they just over do it a little bit with the make-up effects in this film. They should have stuck with the same make-up they used in the remake, but I assume they were just trying to go nastier for the shock value. Too bad it didn't work. Another thing that just didn't work was the ending. I won't ruin anything for you when I say it ends much like the remake although here it is much too abrupt and fast. It leaves it wide open for another sequel (which I think they should pass on... people need to know when to quit).
Overall, The Hills Have Eyes II is pretty decent, although it's much more violent than scary. I prefer Craven's original and definitely Aja's remake to this any day, but it's worth seeing if you enjoy those. It's a bit bland at times and could use some improvements (and I think Aja could have done wonders with this) but it wasn't a bad way for a horror fan to spend an hour and a half.
Grade: C+